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Book Details:
The Future of Buildings, Transportation, and Power by Roger Duncan and Michael E. Webber Category: Adult Non-Fiction (18+), 290 pages Genre: Non-fiction Futurism | Tour dates: Jan 11 to Jan 22, 2021 Publisher: DW Books | Release date: July 2020 Content Rating: G. No erotic or bad language Book Description: The evolution of buildings, transportation and power will determine how our future looks and feels, and in the book Roger Duncan and Michael E. Webber argue the Energy Efficiency Megatrend will shape our future technology. Buildings and vehicles will evolve into sentient-appearing machines such that we will be living, working and moving about inside robots. Buildings may develop personalities and the transportation system will have any manner of vehicle available at a moment's notice. This complex, interconnected system will be powered by the clean and efficient conversion of fuels and energy flows that surround us. Buy the Book: Amazon
REVIEW By LAWonder10:
In the book The Future of Buildings, Transportation and Power, the authors have benn thorough in their research! The Introduction is succinct in covering the content of the upcoming various chapters. The authors continue with exactness in following their introduction. It is clear, they have done extensive research into past and present theories and predictions. within each chapter, they have pointed out the pros and cons of the various projections. Each chapter has a summary at the end, which clarifies the previous content, then smoothly flows to the next one. I found the claims and projections of various influencers and scientists very interesting. One of the Inflencers, Kurzweil, "believes that the nanotechnology revolution will transform every aspect of energy". This is only one projection which is studied in depth by the authors. We are all witnessing the rapidly progressing changes in all of these areas. Many ideas and projections which were believed too incredible and believed impossible, has happened. The newest generation's mind-frame is "nothing's impossible"! What used to take months or years, now takes days or weeks. A new technology is obsolete within months. The authors point out that even with high tech, the urban solutions, created to last decades, will still be needed. The end conclusion is concise and complete. This is an incredibly well-written work of literary art. I offer a Five Stars rating. This book was gifted me with no pressure for a positive review. This is my honest review.
Research was the cornerstone of my book, The Future of Buildings, Transportation and Power, with co-author Michael E. Webber. A non-fiction work, the book looks at current technology trends and projects what our future urban environment will look and feel like. Research for any non-fiction work is difficult, but writing a book that attempts to predict future technology has unique challenges. The first challenge is determining the current technology trends in the sectors we were analyzing – buildings, transportation and power. This involved looking at traditional data sources published by government and non-government sources like the U.S. Department of Energy and the International Energy Agency in Paris. The data and analysis from such agencies were essential in determining the broad historical energy and technology trends in the way we generated electricity and consumed energy. But figuring out what new technology is emerging and the potential impact is much more challenging. Government reports and analysis are helpful in this regard, but the real advances are in technical reports and the magazines and journals that report them. In addition to figuring out trends from technical reports, we needed to explain technology advances and their consequences without losing readers in jargon or boring them with detail. Popular science and industry publications proved invaluable. Magazines like New Scientist, MIT Technology Review, and IEEE Spectrum closely watch new developments in the technical journals, and write clear and accessible summaries of the research and its implications. They also contain the references that allowed me to go back to the original reports without arduous searching. Plus we could trust the science and technical reporters for publications like the New York Times to be current with exciting new developments and give accessible summaries of the importance of the advance to lay readers. And since our book was focusing on how technology would change our future work and travel environments, we also needed to know which technology was proving commercially viable, and which ended up being interesting ideas that never made it out of the lab. In this regard, business publications like Bloomberg BusinessWeek and The Wall Street Journal were excellent resources for locating the companies and business sectors that were implementing technical advances and how fundamental business practices were changing. For instance, it was fascinating to see how 3D printers started out as tabletop machines for printing plastic prototypes and morphed into a disruptive technology being used to print cars, houses, medical implants and a myriad of other uses throughout our economy. Finally, we were constantly looking for any technology developments that would confirm the trends outlined in the book, and on the alert for anything that would contradict those trends. For instance, moving the generation of electricity away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy sources like solar and wind was confirmed as a fundamental technology trend, while “clean coal” technology, which was being pushed hard by the coal industry, did not prove to be economically viable ![]()
Meet the Authors:
Roger Duncan is a former Austin, Texas City Councilmember and the former General Manager of Austin Energy, the municipal electric utility. He is also a former Research Fellow at the Energy Institute at the University of Texas. Michael E. Webber is the Josey Centennial Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas, and Chief Science and Technology Officer at ENGIE, a multi-national energy services and ingrastructure company. connect with the authors: website ![]()
Giveaway Details:
Signed copy of THE FUTURE OF BUILDINGS, TRANSPORTATION, AND POWER plus $10 Amazon Gift Card (3 winners) (USA only) (ends Jan 29) Enter by filling in the Rafflecopter Form Below
2 Comments
Roger Duncan
1/12/2021 10:47:47 am
Thank you for the great review. I am very happy that you enjoyed the book and wish you well with your great blog. I will be looking here in the future for other great books.
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